Maya has rejected everything about her father since learning at a young age that he’s a brutal mob boss. She’s changed her last name to Orlov and set about creating as much distance between her and the Russian mob as she possibly can. So, when she discovers that the man she’s rescued outside her London flat—the man she’s falling for—is her father’s greatest enemy, she’s torn. She hates her father, but she hates the violence surrounding her family even more. How can she allow Kostya to carry out his plan? And, at the same time, how can she resist Kostya when his kisses make her weak-kneed and his touch makes her wish for a life that she can never have?
1
MAYA
Someone was coming for her.
Footsteps attempted to mirror hers, the thud of her flats on the pavement being echoed by a second, slightly heavier sound that was almost perfectly matched to her pace. Almost. But a fraction of a second had been all it took for her ear to pick up on the dissonance, and now that she’d heard it, she couldn’t ignore it.
The orange glow of the streetlights overhead wouldn’t save her—not on such a quiet street. Her only hope was the shadows between the downtown flats she walked by. Even then, she had her doubts, but it was something.
Terrible things happened in the dark. Maya knew that well.
She glanced over her shoulder and saw no one. Had her pursuer given up on the chase, or was he lying in wait somewhere, biding his time, waiting for her to make a mistake? Maya curled her fingers into nervous fists and found that her palms were sweaty. Her stomach, already uncomfortably full from the order-in Chinese she’d eaten during her overtime shift at work, clenched tight with dread. She let a stale breath out of her lungs, then squeezed her eyes shut and summoned what little remained of her courage. Moving swiftly, she ducked into the next alley and bolted, hoping to put space between herself and the man pursuing her.
She didn’t get far.
Beyond the rush of her pulse in her ears and the frightened thoughts flitting through her mind as she ran, Maya heard something else that slowed her, then made her stop entirely. There was a pitiful noise coming from a little deeper in the alley. Someone—a man, by the sounds of it—was in pain.
She looked over her shoulder again, half-expecting to see the light from the main street blotted out by a blocky male outline. There was nothing, and by the sounds of it, the footsteps had stopped. She turned her attention back toward the sound and approached carefully, still not fully trusting the noise. There was a chance that her pursuer had planned this, and that it was a trap. But even if it was, what other choice did she have? She could either progress through the alley and pass the noise, in which case she’d be captured, or she could turn around and face whoever had been following her.
She’d take her chances on the unknown.
A rusted metal dumpster was placed against the side of the flat on Maya’s right. She held her breath and moved on silently, then poked her head around the far side to see if anyone was there. What she saw made her gasp and jump back. Her heart rattled against her ribcage, begging for escape.
There was a man there. She’d only seen his outline in the shadows, but she knew that she wasn’t imagining things. He’d been positioned over a few errant garbage bags, his body draped in such a way that it almost looked like he was sitting, but his head was rolled to the side in an unnatural fashion, and Maya got the feeling that this wasn’t some drunk or junkie who’d nodded out for the night. There was something else going on here—something sinister.
He made another small noise—a groan. Maya’s stomach twisted with pity, and she stepped back around the dumpster to see if he was okay, resolve suddenly overcoming the fear she’d felt moments before. If he was acting, his performance was spot-on and he deserved to capture her. Maya had never heard a man sound so broken before.
“Hello?” she asked in a small voice. “Can you hear me?”
“… pomogi mne, Mama.”
Maya’s lips parted in shock, but she couldn’t find words to speak. The man was speaking Russian, and he was asking for help.
Was this her father’s doing?
She looked down the alley behind her, then back to the man in front of her. “Can you hear me?” she asked.
The man murmured something, but he spoke too quietly for her to hear. Heart racing, Maya leaned in close, but he’d quieted down. Was he still conscious? Maya couldn’t see clearly enough to tell. She took her cell phone from her purse and activated her flashlight app.
The man was bleeding from a lump on his head that had become so engorged with fluids that the skin had split open. Blood coated one side of his face almost entirely, and it had trickled down his jaw and neck to soak into the top of his shirt. Maya clutched her phone to her chest, blocking out the light as if doing so would reverse what had happened to him. There was no way she could leave him here, but at the same time, she knew that, if her father was involved, calling the police or the ambulance wasn’t the best idea.
The men Anatoly Popov involved himself with usually wanted to keep themselves under the radar. If this was his doing, Maya didn’t want to associate herself with his name again by bringing this matter to the police. The less she had to do with her father, the better…
But she couldn’t leave a man to die in a pile of trash.
“Hey, um, if you can hear me… hi. I’m Maya.” Maya bit down on her bottom lip. She took the phone from her chest and shone light at him again, avoiding his face. “I’m going to help you, okay? Ya pomogu tebe.”
“Galina,” the man uttered. He tried to open his eyes, but blood had clotted over his eyelashes and kept one of his eyes welded shut. The opposite eye only opened a sliver. Maya frowned and reached out for him. She set a tender hand on his arm to let him know that he wasn’t alone, and that she meant no harm.
Galina must be his girlfriend, or his wife…
“No, I’m Maya,” she told him. “Maya. I don’t know a Galina. But I’m still going to help you, and I’m still going to make sure that you’re alright. Can you stand?”
She received no response, but she felt his body brace beneath her hand like he expected to be moved. Maya sucked in a breath, quashed down the voice in her head that told her she was being a fool, and maneuvered herself so that she could slip an arm beneath the man’s shoulders. Maya knew that lifting him would require herculean effort, and that, as small as she was, she’d never be able to do it without help, but she had to try. To her relief, the man was conscious enough to support some of his own weight, and once she got him on his feet, he leaned on her heavily, but seemed capable of walking.
“What’s your name?” she asked as she guided him from the alley. She no longer heard the footsteps from before. Hopefully, now that she wasn’t alone, whoever was following her would stop.
She received no response.
“What happened to you?” she asked.
Again, she was met with silence.
Maya gave up after that, focusing instead on making sure the man made it to safety. Her flat wasn’t far, and although she lived alone, she still had a few pieces of her ex’s clothing hanging around that she thought might fit him. She’d been meaning to throw it out for ages, but had never gotten around to it. What had been an annoyance now seemed a lot more like fate.
“Galina,” the man murmured. He slumped against her as they walked, and she did her best to hold him upright. “Pomogu…”
“Ya pomogu tebe,” she promised. I will help you.
And whoever he was, no matter what his relation was to her father, she would help him. If he was a random Russian who’d been caught in a fight, fine… but if his proximity to her flat was a sign of something bigger going on, she wanted to know about it. Besides, if her father had tried to eliminate this man, it meant he’d opposed him in some way, and to Maya, that was a clear indication that they were on the same team. She’d put a little kindness out into the world, and hopefully, she’d receive a little kindness in return. No matter what, she’d trust her gut
on what to do. It had never steered her wrong before.
2
KOSTYA
A warm, wet washcloth dabbed at his eye. Kostya groaned and squeezed his eyelids shut tighter than before. All he knew was that his head felt like it had been put into a paint mixer, and his ribs were sore. Some bastard must have jumped me, he thought, but the conclusion fizzled out almost as soon as it came into focus. Right now, figuring out who’d attacked him was less important than figuring out where he was… and who exactly was dabbing a washcloth against his eye.
He opened his eyes and prepared to face down whoever it was, only to find his eyelids wouldn’t part. His right eyelid fluttered, but his left seemed to be glued shut. Panic struck, then morphed into rage. Kostya had sewn eyelids shut before, just like he’d stitched up lips, and fingers, and toes. If someone was making an attempt at torture to force information out of him, he’d never talk. He’d rather die. He would not betray the Sokolov name.
But a warm, wet washcloth didn’t scream torture, and the way it touched his eye was too gentle. No. Something else was going on here, and he was going to figure it out.
He lifted an arm a fraction and found that his body was unrestrained. The washcloth parted from his eye, and whoever stood next to him sucked in a tiny, startled breath. Kostya clawed at his eye and found that his eyelashes were matted together with something both tacky and crusty. Clotted blood. He tugged it from eyelashes, then let his hand drop. Eyelids no longer glued shut, he opened his eyes.
Bright light. A white ceiling. A startled female face. Kostya blinked a few times.
A woman?
“Hi,” the woman said.
She looked to be in her early twenties, but her soft features and large, innocent eyes made it hard for him to judge. “I’m Maya,” she offered. “I found you on the street. Are you okay?”
Although she apparently tried very hard to mask it behind her British English, Kostya heard a Russian accent. He squinted up at her, trying to make her face out in detail from where he lay. She looked familiar, but he couldn’t recall ever having met a Maya in his life. “Do I look like I’m okay?” he rasped after another minute.
“Well, you’re talking, and you’re talking in English, so that’s already better than before!” She smiled at him, then swept her hair back from her forehead with her wrist. The movement was alluringly feminine and pretty, and for a moment, Kostya allowed himself to be swayed by it. “When our paths crossed, you were asking for help in Russian.”
Kostya shut down his emotions. When he spoke again, his words were frosted over. “I was asking for help?”
“Very softy. You were lying in a pile of trash, and when I came near, you asked for your mother to help you.”
Kostya’s shoulders clenched. He looked at Maya with suspicion. Never once did her expression sour, not even when he was curt to her. “I would never do that.”
She shrugged. “I’m only telling you what I heard. When I picked you up and helped you walk back home, you kept calling me Galina. That’s… all I know about you. So if you could tell me if you’re okay or not, for starters, I’d really appreciate it. I figured you wouldn’t want me to call a doctor.”
Kostya shut his eyes again. For a brief moment, he’d entertained the notion that she was lying to try to lull him into a false sense of security, but he didn’t think that likely anymore. Galina was his mother’s name, and he figured that if he was so out of it that he’d asked for help in the first place, he would only have resorted to sharing it in the hopes she knew who he was talking about. A sour taste flooded Kostya’s mouth, and he opened his eyes again to look up at her. “Who do you work for?”
“If I answer your question, you have to answer mine.”
“Who do you work for?” Kostya had forced the words out more confidently this time. She would answer him, and he would deal with her from there.
“Well, right now I work with New Beginnings, which is a non-profit organization devoted to helping London’s homeless population. Mostly, I work with women and children who’ve escaped abusive households.” She paused, then bit down on her lip and looked to the side thoughtfully, almost bashfully, like she wasn’t sure if he could be trusted with what else she had to say. When she spoke again, she did so slowly, as if trying to downplay the significance of her words. “We’re trying to open a new shelter right now, and I’ve been doing more paperwork and attending more meetings than should be legal. Is that good enough for you.”
He wanted to grab her by the front of the shirt and pull her down until they were face to face so that he could snarl against her lips not to play games with him, but a pain jolted through his head and dampened his anger. He relaxed his shoulders and his neck, then closed his eyes and let his frustration go. Just because she was Russian didn’t mean that she had a connection to any of the crime families, though her heritage probably explained why she hadn’t called an ambulance when she’d discovered him. Russians took care of their own. If he’d been speaking Russian to her while slumped over garbage, bleeding enough that his eye had sealed shut, there was a good chance she’d known just from that not to get the authorities involved.
Good girl.
Kostya took a closer look at her, impressed with her judgment. Apart from her soft features and large eyes, she had full lips and a long, slender neck that led to elegant shoulders. Her hair was kept short, almost boyish in style, and was a pretty chestnut color that suited her pale skin tone. Kostya typically preferred girls who were more traditionally beautiful, but there was something about Maya that appealed to him.
“Are you okay?” she asked when he remained silent.
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
Kostya frowned. “Yes. Stop pestering me.”
“What’s it going to take for you to give me your name?” she asked.
“Yours.”
“I already gave you my name.”
“Your full name,” Kostya clarified.
She sighed and tossed the washcloth in her hand to the side. A tiny splash marked its impact into a basin that Kostya heard, but couldn’t see. “I’m Maya Orlov. Who do I have the pleasure of speaking to?”
Kostya pressed his tongue to the roof of his mouth. Maya was Russian. He’d heard her accent, and although her last name meant nothing to him, it further linked her to her heritage. There was a chance that she already knew who he was, and that she was working for the enemy. Kostya knew that he’d come to London for a reason, and that there was blood that needed to be shed, but no matter how hard he searched his memory, he couldn’t remember what he’d set out to do. He recalled leaving the Sokolov mansion in a foul mood and driving himself to the airport, but after that…
He closed his eyes and let out a withering sigh. Until he remembered what the hell he was doing in London, he needed to make sure he didn’t blow his cover. “I don’t remember.”
“You don’t remember?” Maya sounded so concerned that Kostya opened his eyes again. He found her bent at the waist, hovering over him. Her gaze was fixed on his head. “You’ve got this big lump on your head, and you were bleeding heavily. Do you think it’s short-term memory loss? Or… I guess that wouldn’t explain you forgetting your name, would it? Names are long-term.”
“I’m not a doctor. I don’t know.”
“We should get you to one. Now that you’re awake, where would you like to go?”
“I’m not going to the doctor,” Kostya said stiffly. “I’m not from England, if you can’t tell. I’m not covered by the local universal health care.”
“Bullshit. You—”
Kostya narrowed his eyes as he looked at her, doing his best to get her to shut up and stop arguing. It worked. Maya said nothing more.
“I just don’t want to go to the hospital,” he said. “Can we please leave it at that?”
“Well, do you have a wallet? A phone? Anything at all we can use to figure out who you are?”
Kostya’s hands darted to his pockets, only t
o find them empty. His gut twisted in sudden panic. His identification, his money, and his phone were gone.
Shit.
“It’s gone,” he said. “All gone.”
And so, too, had disappeared any chance that he’d get out of this without complication.
3
MAYA
“Okay, so, you’re not sure what your name is, you have no wallet, ID, or cell phone, and you don’t have anywhere that will take you in that you can remember.” Maya frowned. She crossed her arms over her chest and looked down at the man on her bed. She’d have to change her sheets, since his clothes stunk from contact with the garbage, and since he was still bleeding slightly, but that wasn’t what worried her the most. What worried her was the thought that his presence in her flat might attract the wrong kind of attention. Maya had been doing a very good job of living off the grid and out of sight of her father, and the last thing she wanted to do was get dragged back into that darkness again.
“Correct,” said the man on the bed.
“Then we’re going to need to find you a name to go by, and we’re going to need to find you a place to stay. I’m going to leave the whole naming thing up to you. Pick something that sounds nice, okay? While you do that, I’m going to go pull some strings so you have a bed to call your own.”
“Nikolai.” He said it without a second thought, and Maya wondered if it wasn’t really his name. “Do I need to come up with a last name?”
“No. That will do.” She glanced toward the bedroom door. “You sit tight, okay, Nikolai? I’m going to make a call, and when I come back, I’ll know a little bit more about what we can do about your situation.”
The Sokolov Brothers: The Complete Series Page 22